GNOME Foundation Meeting Minutes :: 6th September 2007
Present: Behdad, Lucas, Anne, Quim, Zana
Regrets: Jeff
Absent: Vincent
1) Zana's Report
Things are going well. Zana has been working on sending out some
Paypal fits. She sent some updated account figures to the list
before the call. Quim commented that these were really useful
and asked if Zana had been checking the figures against the budget
to see where we stand. Zana replied that she hadn't, and really
only getting to grips with GNUcash, and that it might not be the
best tool for budgeting. Quim mentioned that we need to be careful
about accumulating money, as it might show the wrong impression
to our paying advisory board members. Zana commented that the
fiscal year closes at the end of this month, and that she didn't
know if the budget was for the fiscal or calendar year.
Board agreed during a post-call discussion to provide Zana with
12 weeks maternity leave, and to monitor her progress during
this time. Zana offered to do some basic admin during that time
as when necessary.
ACTION: Quim to contact Zana about her maternity leave.
2) Sponsorship Requests (Brazil, Izabel)
Izabel has asked for sponsorship for hosting 4o. Forum GNOME
this year, as part of a wider conference http://www.ensl.org.br/.
The request includes travel for a few people, accommodation and
money to print t-shirts and/or badges. All agreed to sponsor
$4000 USD for this.
ACTION: Lucas to mail Izabel about GNOME Foundation sponsoring
the event.
ACTION: Zana to send Izabel the sponsorship money.
FOSS.in is planning a project day for GNOME. There's an opportunity
to sponsor this event, and the board will monitor the progress.
There are a few sponsorships pending for the Boston GNOME Summit
to organize an Accessibility summit, and Java-GNOME meeting. As
yet there are no details about the breakdown of the sponsorship
costs.
ACTION: Vincent and Behdad to follow up with those people looking
for sponsorship.
3) Boston GNOME Summit
Still need confirmation about the venue before we can announce the
summit. Jeff has proposed a few options that are still under
investigation. We hope to be able to announce the dates soon.
4) GNOME Mobile Meeting in Madrid
There has been no confirmation of the event in Madrid. Lucas thinks
it may already be too late to organize something, and suggests that
it needs to be discussed on the GNOME Mobile list.
ACTION: Quim to ping the GNOME Mobile list about a meeting in Madrid.
5) Referendum for Changing the Bylaws
Lucas received a reply from Behdad, Quim and Vincent to agree with
his proposed schedule, but doesn't feel comfortable about announcing
it. Quim will ping Jeff about where things are at with James Vasile
and the wording of the changes.
ACTION: Quim to ping Jeff about status of the bylaws change and
corresponding announcement.
6) OpenXML vs ODF
The announcement of the first ISO vote on OOXML has been published.
A second very important vote will take place in February in Geneva and
only technical comments will be considered by ISO at that time. Anne
believes that GNOME should have a position on OOXML as an open standard.
Even if GNOME can not influence the first vote, GNOME can still air a
general view on the standardization at stake.
Quim believes that we still owe an answer to Richard Stallman about
the Foundation's position. Anne will work on this. Quim mentioned that
he had concerns about how to approach this - should be very clear when
we are speaking as a board rather than our personal opinions.
ACTION: Anne to work on shorter statement draft and send to board-list.
7) Planet GNOME
Quim thinks that we still need to provide a response to the ongoing Planet
GNOME maintenance issues. While he doesn't think it's a board responsibility,
it's an ongoing issue, and we should state our position. Anne commented that
Vincent's proposed guidelines look reasonable, and we should continue to
discuss them on the list. Glynn sympathized with the pressures of maintaining
a Planet, and feels that it should be a privilege rather than a right to
some extent and important to maintain the readability and relevance of the
site. Quim agreed on the editorial line, but simple maintenance was still
an issue. Planet GNOME is one of the most important and popular pages that
we have, and not necessarily the task of a single person. Lucas commented
that the issues are separate - one is the guidelines, the other being the
maintenance. Anne commented that it would be good if every contributor
to Planet GNOME was a Foundation member.
ACTION: Quim to draft mail about Planet GNOME and send to board-list for
comments before sending to foundation-list.